Re: [man-pages PATCH v3] statx.2, open.2: document STATX_DIOALIGN

[Darrick J. Wong]

On Tue, Oct 04, 2022 at 10:43:07AM -0700, Eric Biggers wrote:
> From: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Document the STATX_DIOALIGN support for statx()
> (https://git.kernel.org/linus/725737e7c21d2d25).
> 
> Reviewed-by: Darrick J. Wong <djwong@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> 
> I'm resending this now that support for STATX_DIOALIGN has been merged
> upstream.

Woo!  Thank you for getting this over the line! :)

--D

> v3: updated mentions of Linux version, fixed some punctuation, and added
>     a Reviewed-by
> 
> v2: rebased onto man-pages master branch, mentioned xfs, and updated
>     link to patchset
> 
>  man2/open.2  | 43 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------
>  man2/statx.2 | 29 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 61 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/man2/open.2 b/man2/open.2
> index deba7e4ea..b8617e0d2 100644
> --- a/man2/open.2
> +++ b/man2/open.2
> @@ -1732,21 +1732,42 @@ of user-space buffers and the file offset of I/Os.
>  In Linux alignment
>  restrictions vary by filesystem and kernel version and might be
>  absent entirely.
> -However there is currently no filesystem\-independent
> -interface for an application to discover these restrictions for a given
> -file or filesystem.
> -Some filesystems provide their own interfaces
> -for doing so, for example the
> +The handling of misaligned
> +.B O_DIRECT
> +I/Os also varies; they can either fail with
> +.B EINVAL
> +or fall back to buffered I/O.
> +.PP
> +Since Linux 6.1,
> +.B O_DIRECT
> +support and alignment restrictions for a file can be queried using
> +.BR statx (2),
> +using the
> +.B STATX_DIOALIGN
> +flag.
> +Support for
> +.B STATX_DIOALIGN
> +varies by filesystem; see
> +.BR statx (2).
> +.PP
> +Some filesystems provide their own interfaces for querying
> +.B O_DIRECT
> +alignment restrictions, for example the
>  .B XFS_IOC_DIOINFO
>  operation in
>  .BR xfsctl (3).
> +.B STATX_DIOALIGN
> +should be used instead when it is available.
>  .PP
> -Under Linux 2.4, transfer sizes, the alignment of the user buffer,
> -and the file offset must all be multiples of the logical block size
> -of the filesystem.
> -Since Linux 2.6.0, alignment to the logical block size of the
> -underlying storage (typically 512 bytes) suffices.
> -The logical block size can be determined using the
> +If none of the above is available, then direct I/O support and alignment
> +restrictions can only be assumed from known characteristics of the filesystem,
> +the individual file, the underlying storage device(s), and the kernel version.
> +In Linux 2.4, most block device based filesystems require that the file offset
> +and the length and memory address of all I/O segments be multiples of the
> +filesystem block size (typically 4096 bytes).
> +In Linux 2.6.0, this was relaxed to the logical block size of the block device
> +(typically 512 bytes).
> +A block device's logical block size can be determined using the
>  .BR ioctl (2)
>  .B BLKSSZGET
>  operation or from the shell using the command:
> diff --git a/man2/statx.2 b/man2/statx.2
> index 0d1b4591f..50397057d 100644
> --- a/man2/statx.2
> +++ b/man2/statx.2
> @@ -61,7 +61,12 @@ struct statx {
>         containing the filesystem where the file resides */
>      __u32 stx_dev_major;   /* Major ID */
>      __u32 stx_dev_minor;   /* Minor ID */
> +
>      __u64 stx_mnt_id;      /* Mount ID */
> +
> +    /* Direct I/O alignment restrictions */
> +    __u32 stx_dio_mem_align;
> +    __u32 stx_dio_offset_align;
>  };
>  .EE
>  .in
> @@ -247,6 +252,8 @@ STATX_BTIME	Want stx_btime
>  STATX_ALL	The same as STATX_BASIC_STATS | STATX_BTIME.
>  	It is deprecated and should not be used.
>  STATX_MNT_ID	Want stx_mnt_id (since Linux 5.8)
> +STATX_DIOALIGN	Want stx_dio_mem_align and stx_dio_offset_align
> +	(since Linux 6.1; support varies by filesystem)
>  .TE
>  .in
>  .PP
> @@ -407,6 +414,28 @@ This is the same number reported by
>  .BR name_to_handle_at (2)
>  and corresponds to the number in the first field in one of the records in
>  .IR /proc/self/mountinfo .
> +.TP
> +.I stx_dio_mem_align
> +The alignment (in bytes) required for user memory buffers for direct I/O
> +.BR "" ( O_DIRECT )
> +on this file, or 0 if direct I/O is not supported on this file.
> +.IP
> +.B STATX_DIOALIGN
> +.IR "" ( stx_dio_mem_align
> +and
> +.IR stx_dio_offset_align )
> +is supported on block devices since Linux 6.1.
> +The support on regular files varies by filesystem; it is supported by ext4,
> +f2fs, and xfs since Linux 6.1.
> +.TP
> +.I stx_dio_offset_align
> +The alignment (in bytes) required for file offsets and I/O segment lengths for
> +direct I/O
> +.BR "" ( O_DIRECT )
> +on this file, or 0 if direct I/O is not supported on this file.
> +This will only be nonzero if
> +.I stx_dio_mem_align
> +is nonzero, and vice versa.
>  .PP
>  For further information on the above fields, see
>  .BR inode (7).
> 
> base-commit: bc28d289e5066fc626df260bafc249846a0f6ae6
> -- 
> 2.37.3
>